


Storm on Yavin IV

by silvergryphon



Series: Black and Gold Verse [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, don't mind me, just a bit of pre-Valentine's fluff, mentions of other PT characters, post-redemption Darth Vader, storms are really cool okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 20:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9624272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvergryphon/pseuds/silvergryphon
Summary: With help from a dear friend, Vader Skywalker has dragged himself back to the Light, defected with a fully crewed Super Star Destroyer, and joined the Rebellion. But not everyone welcomes him with open arms, and the tension gets to him. Jedi Knight Naroko Chiston has a plan.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DiaryofaWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiaryofaWriter/gifts).



> I don't own Star Wars. Just Naroko Chiston.

Thoughts brushed against his shields, tugging him out of his concentration. He scowled and wormed his way a little deeper into the belly of the TIE’s engine. It had been a bad day, too many people watching and whispering questions about him, asking why they were still daring to trust the man who’d been Darth Vader.

Apparently showing up with a kriffing Super Star Destroyer and pledging his and his people’s service to the Rebel Alliance just wasn’t enough to convince some people. 

Whatever. As long as they didn’t give his people hassle or attempt to assassinate him, he didn’t care. He was away from Palpatine. He was away from the Empire and in a position to tear down the horrible, twisted thing he’d helped build. He was alive and healed enough to be out of that thousand-times cursed, Sith-spawned suit and helmet at last, able to breathe on his own. He was on speaking terms with Padme and ObiWan and was allowed to spend time with his children. The Rebel leaders had more or less accepted the aide of his ship and his crew and troops.

Let the footsoldiers whisper. He was in a better situation than he had been in years. 

Right now he was helping by refitting one of the _Executor’s_ TIE fighters with a shield generator. It had been noted that TIE fighters- and TIE pilots- were a limited resource in the Rebellion. There were basically only those who had come with the _Executor_ , hand-picked by Vader himself for questioning the Empire and expressing beliefs that what the Empire was doing was wrong. He didn’t want lose those pilots needlessly. So some scrounging had been done, and the Rebellion’s smugglers had gotten their hands on a supply of shield generators, and now he and a number of other techs were working on extending the pilots’ life expectancies by adding to their defenses. 

Mostly former Imperial techs. As a rule, the Rebel techs were wary about approaching the defected Imperials or their ships, though they were grudgingly willing to share hangar space. 

He kept working, checking conduits and wiring, breaking connections and making new ones, inspecting each part as he came across it. He didn’t care he was getting engine lubricant on his face, his prosthetic hands, his shirt. Hell, it’s not like it would hurt his hands any. To the contrary, it might even help some. He’d jammed his fingers by mistake a little while ago and it felt like one of the joints had gotten stiff.

Again that brush of thoughts against his shields.

<You’re tense.>

Vader muttered a curse in reply. <Don’t really feel like talking right now, Naroko,> he sent back, perhaps more forcefully than he really ought, but if he heard ‘what if he’s just here to spy for Palpatine?’ _one more time_ he might just relapse and strangle someone. 

<You don’t have to talk, dear one,> the Jedi replied, patient as ever with his prickly retort. He had no idea how she managed such depths of patience. It wasn’t endless- he’d seen her in a temper more than once, and before he’d realized just what horrible things the Empire he’d helped create she’d been positively vindictive in throwing certain truths in his face when he’d tried to ignore them- but she was certainly patient enough to rival ObiWan and some of the other old Masters he’d known. He felt a wave of calm come along the bond they shared, a bond he’d reluctantly accepted and generally tried not to touch because he was still convinced he didn’t deserve a connection like that to anyone anymore, and grumbled again. 

<Stop that,> he told her.

<I want you to see something.> Naroko Chiston, when she’d set her mind to a thing, was impossible to shake from her course. He’d tried once or twice, in the past. And he knew that ObiWan, Padme, and her former apprentice Ayliah had all vehemently objected to her stubborn insistence on helping the man who’d betrayed them all and brought about the end of the world as they’d known it. 

_Stubborn, impossible, passionate-_

He shut down that line of thought as quickly as he could before anything could leak back over to her. 

By the soft sense of amusement he felt from her, he must not have been fast enough.

<Please,> she said softly. <You’ll like this.>

He sighed, realizing when she clearly wasn’t going to leave him to his own devices. Better to go see what she wanted so he could get back to work. Extricating himself from the engine, he bit off another curse as he managed to jam one shoulder against a protruding corner of metal, feeling it dig into flesh newly unprotected by armor. He’d only been out of the suit a week and was still getting re-accustomed to being able to feel things. Jamming himself on pointy parts of a TIE fighter’s engine wasn’t really how he wanted to reintroduce himself to the ability. 

Maybe he ought to have taken Tinker and Fixer up on their offers to make him slightly smaller prosthetics. It’d be a lot easier to wriggle in among the guts of a starfighter that way.

Vader focused on that internal debate as he made his way through the hangar and up the six levels of the ancient stone temple the Rebellion had made their base in, ignoring the way people would very carefully stop and watch him as he strode past. It was easier to do when they didn’t immediately turn to one another and start whispering. He just hoped he was maintaining a calm expression. 

_Ten years behind that kriffing mask put me out of practice at hiding what I was thinking._

Not that he’d ever been particularly good at it to begin with. 

She waited for him in a chamber at the top of the temple, one he vaguely knew opened up onto an outdoor platform. Her face, her presence, her entire being lit up with warmth as he joined her, and she smiled up at him. It had the effect of softening his annoyance- slightly. It was hard to stay mad when Naroko Chiston was smiling. A powerful empath and healer, she could radiate emotions like a sun radiated heat and light if she wasn’t shielding, and she wasn’t now. 

“There you are, dear one,” she said, dark eyes crinkling at the corners as she met his gaze. Time and stress and strain had etched lines there, adding character to her lovely features. Her hair- long, ebony black aside from a few thin threads of grey- had been left unbound today, freed from its usual tails or braids, and flowed down her back, reminding him of a night sky streaked by falling stars. 

He still wasn’t quite sure how he’d regained the honor of that form of address she used with those she cared for most. 

He nodded to her, raising one eyebrow as he waited for her to explain why she’d called him all the way up here. His only answer was her hand lightly brushing his upper arm, above the prosthetic, a silent urging to follow her as she stepped outside. 

They came out onto a sort of patio, a flat area that ringed the tiny chamber that formed the very peak of the temple. Around them, the jungles of Yavin IV spread on for miles, an endless expanse of green, dabbed here and there with exotic violet or orange foliage. The gas giant their moon orbited was hidden from view by a heavy layer of clouds. They hung low and dark and heavy in the sky, and a cool breeze cut through the jungle’s usual damp warmth. 

“Yes, Naroko, it’s the jungle,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I’ve seen it before. Stunning, yes. Was there something you wanted?”

“Hush,” she replied, pitching her voice just loudly enough to be heard over a rumble of thunder in the distance. “Just feel.”

Feel? Did she mean in the Force? He frowned at the elder Jedi, who now stood with her eyes closed. Fine. He could do that. Probably not a bad idea anyway. It might let him shake off some of the edgy irritability that had been plaguing him all afternoon. Though this was an odd place to be trying to meditate.

With a sigh- he’d been starting to develop a habit of sighing, he realized, now that he had regained the ability to do it properly without that damned respirator forcing air into his lungs at mechanically enforced intervals- he closed his eyes and touched the Force. Here, on this jungle moon, it sang, full of life. He let it all roll over him, dazzling and effervescent waves of color and feeling. He could pick out every being in the temple base, bright sparks of light bolder and more distinct than the pinpricks that were animals, birds, insects. There were a handful of small stars among them, some brighter than others, that were the dozen or so Jedi survivors and recruits from the old Service Corps that initiates unfortunate enough to be chosen as Padawans were sent off to. Brighter still were the points of light that were ObiWan, little Luke and Leia, Naroko’s former apprentice Ayliah, and young Mara, the female clone of ObiWan who’d been raised under Sidious’s care as a future apprentice. Vader had learned of her shortly before he’d defected and brought her here with him. She was settling in now, the damage Sidious had been doing to her heart and mind slowly healing.

Brightest of all was the presence beside him, Naroko herself. She’d always had more color to her than most Jedi. They had always been clear white and blue and silver in his mind, with a touch of green if they were healers. Naroko was _color_ , green and blue and dazzling violet and threads of burgandy and gold, more vivid and _present_ and _alive_  than any Jedi he’d known, passion and compassion tempered by will. 

How she’d gone so long without being stifled by the Code that forbade passion and attachment, he had no idea. Maybe she’d always been a bit of a heretic on that point.

She touched his thoughts, wordlessly guided his attention up into the sky. The storm crept over the jungle, patient as a stalking lothcat, heavy with rain and thrumming with power. He felt it building, rising, tension humming like a live wire-

_CRACK!_

The power burst free in a single bolt of lightning, bright enough to shine red through his closed eyelids. He shivered at the feel of it, slowly opening himself up to the power in that storm, the power in his own body a strong echo of the power building in the storm.

It called to him and he let it, let it sweep him up among currents and swirls of energy. Here and there he felt that energy coalesce into a knot of tension, growing stronger and brighter, seeming to quiver as it built up, only to release in another powerful burst of light and heat and crashing thunder. Vader let himself go, releasing the tensions of the day, of his temper. Here there was none of that, only the play of natural forces, so much more vast than even his own power. No frustration, no fear or anger, no _whispers_. No one judging. 

No good or evil. No Light or Dark.

Just a storm, crackling with its intensity, and clouds heavy with rain, and leaping forks of lightning. 

Up here he was free.

He drifted, and lost all sense of time as he tumbled from one updraft to the next, wove among currents and clouds, laughed aloud with each new bolt that burst forth to strike the ground below. Winds whipped through the tops of the trees, setting branches and foliage to lashing back and forth. He sensed tiny points of light that were animals and birds withdrawing into safe shelters, away from the overwhelming force of the weather. 

He had no need to cower away. Not when he was a part of the storm itself. Those same winds swept through him, scouring away his frustrations and weariness, the ash and dust and dried blood of his past, leaving him empty of them, _clean_. 

Something cold struck his face. 

Vader’s eyes snapped open, and he was back in his physical body once more, beneath the storm. Naroko yet stood beside him, her face turned up to the sky, the wind whipping her tunic and hair. He started again when something else cold and wet struck his face- then his lips parted, forming a silent ‘o’ as he realized. 

 _Rain_. 

For the first time in twelve years, he was feeling _rain on his skin_. 

As if that realization had been a signal to the storm, at that moment rain began to fall in earnest, cold, fat drops coming down in sheets. In the space of a breath, he was wet. In the space of three, he was soaked to the skin.

Naroko’s laugh rang clearly over the sound of the downpour. She was beaming when he looked at her, her hands raised as if trying to catch the fat drops. 

It was impossible not to smile when faced with such pure joy. 

“This is what I wanted to show you,” she called over a crash of thunder. “ _This_. Isn’t it beautiful?”

 _It sure beats a sandstorm_. He couldn’t help the thought, or the laugh that rose up from his chest, rusty and disused but a laugh all the same. “Trust you to enjoy getting drenched in a downpour!”

It was beautiful, though. How long had it been since he’d done something like this? Just let himself see and experience something beautiful, something wondrous? He couldn’t even begin to remember- which told him it had probably been at least fifteen years, unless one counted stolen wartime moments with Padme. 

Like Naroko, he tilted his chin up, letting the rain patter onto his face, reveling in the _feel_  of it, of the cold water against his skin. It pooled in the creases and hollows, threatening to run into his eyes, but he didn’t care. It just felt _wonderful._

Again he lost track of time, just focusing on the rain, and the storm, on feeling. Only when he began to shiver and felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder did he come back to himself.

Naroko was smiling up at him. Like him, she was shivering, but her eyes were warm. “Feel better, dear one?” she asked softly.

Vader nodded, offering her a small smile in return. “Yeah,” he replied. The tension in his shoulders that had been starting to manifest as a dull ache in the back of his skull had eased. Even if he was cold and wet and really just a short step away from freezing, he felt a lot better. Her hand on his shoulder was warm, though. Naroko was the only person who touched him casually, aside from the ever-affectionate twins. She seemed to understand just how much he craved contact.

She also hadn’t moved away. her hand still lingering on his shoulder. He looked at it, but made no move to draw back. 

She’d done so much for him, these past few years. All but single-handedly dragged him back from the Dark Side, healed him, argued on his behalf to the Rebel leaders about his genuine intentions to help them. She’d asked for nothing but honesty from him, that he be honest with both her and himself. 

Reaching up, he covered her hand with his own and gave it a little squeeze. “Thank you, Naroko,” he told her. “This- this was really nice.”

“It was,” she agreed. “I’m glad you came.”

“So am I.” He paused, realizing that he’d been caught by her gaze for the past minute, just looking at her. 

Stillness for a moment. Neither one moved but to breathe, Vader’s hand still covering the one she’d laid on his shoulder, rain pouring down around them. 

Then she reached up, lightly touched his cheek, He leaned into the touch, just a moment, relishing just the simple connection with another person, eyes half-closing. Then, as she ran her thumb over his cheekbone, he turned so his lips could just brush her palm. 

He sensed surprise and no small amount of delight from her, warm feelings that rolled down the thread of their connection. Pleased by this, he nuzzled gently at her palm.

She turned his face back toward her, dark eyes searching his face. Tall as she was, she still had to step close and stand on tiptoe in order to press a small kiss to his cheek. 

“We should go back inside,” she said quietly as she drew back. Her hair, soaked by the downpour and tangled by the wind, was a mess, with thin dark strands clinging to her cheeks and tumbling over her shoulders.

He nodded. “I just noticed it’s a bit wet out here,” he said, grinning. “Let’s go. I’ll help you with your hair.”

Naroko smiled and drew back half a step, still within arm’s reach.

They went back into the Temple, to the sound of a thunderstorm.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on and inspired by an RP verse with my co-author DiaryofaWriter. I've got another fic in the works for it too. That one will pretty much summarize the verse.
> 
> Strange how so far all the fics I've done for this verse are from Vader's POV, not Naroko's, when Naroko is the character I actually play! XD
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this bit of self-indulgent fluff!


End file.
